OpenWrt for Lenovo ix2-dl 2 bay NAS (kirkwood)

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1

Hi All,

The ix2-dl is a capable marvel 6282 / kirkwood based NAS with two drive bays, 256mb ram and 1gb of nand flash.

After running mine on Debian for many years I have now created openWRT images for this box.

Source, install instructions and pre-build images (19.07 and 21.02 rc4) are available on github;
(https://github.com/jdwl1o1/openwrt-len-ix2)

Install requirements;

  • usb to tty-serial adapter, connected to the tty header on the ix2 mainboard. Header is populated from the factory. Easiest access is through the front panel - remove the panel, drives, remove 5 screws and the header is available on the lower right hand side.

  • ext2 formatted usb drive or (preferably) tftp server.

Working;

  • Sata
  • Networking
  • usb
  • fan and temp control

Not Working;

  • nothing - build works fine in my testing.

Performance is good for file sharing and disk access.

Any questions feel free to ask here or GitHub issues page.

2 Likes
2

Hi all,

21.02.0 release images are now available on GitHub.

Issue with nand has been addressed, the full 1gig is now accessible in my latest images.

3

I'm the owner of Stor Center IX-2 DL: I owned a usb to serial adapter, Please someone can give me the PIN assignment on the IX2 board?
Thanks

4

Hey, serial pinout for kirkwood devices is almost always the same, 4pin header, pin 1 GCC, then TX, GND, RX.
Don't connect the GCC pin (3.3volt).

The iConnect page in the wiki has pics etc.

5

Hello, this a great project and thank you for making these images.

I have an old IX2-DL and tried to give it a new life, maybe make it better than the stock firmware. I uploaded your images effectively erasing the old software. It works great, but I can figure out how to format the drives from the OpenWRT interface. I have them with old data, in Raid1 mirror. They show up fine in the interface, but can't do anyting with them.

Also whem trying to download new packages from OpenWRT repository I'm getting errors about packages.gz not being found.
Was able to trace it to the path to the repository, corrected the names but still does not work.

+++++++++++++++ERRORS SKIP+++++++++++++++
Downloading https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/21.02-SNAPSHOT/targets/kirkwood/generic/packages/Packages.gz
*** Failed to download the package list from https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/21.02-SNAPSHOT/targets/kirkwood/generic/packages/Packages.gz

Downloading https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/21.02-SNAPSHOT/packages/arm_xscale/base/Packages.gz
*** Failed to download the package list from https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/21.02-SNAPSHOT/packages/arm_xscale/base/Packages.gz

Downloading https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/21.02-SNAPSHOT/packages/arm_xscale/luci/Packages.gz
*** Failed to download the package list from https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/21.02-SNAPSHOT/packages/arm_xscale/luci/Packages.gz
+++++++++++++++ERRORS SKIP+++++++++++++++

I've corrected the opkg.conf in the section /etc/opkg/distfeeds.conf, and was able to get updates:

src/gz openwrt_core https://mirror-03.infra.openwrt.org/releases/21.02-SNAPSHOT/targets/kirkwood/generic/packages/
src/gz openwrt_base https://mirror-03.infra.openwrt.org/releases/21.02-SNAPSHOT/packages/arm_xscale/base
src/gz openwrt_luci https://mirror-03.infra.openwrt.org/releases/21.02-SNAPSHOT/packages/arm_xscale/luci
src/gz openwrt_packages https://mirror-03.infra.openwrt.org/releases/21.02-SNAPSHOT/packages/arm_xscale/packages
src/gz openwrt_routing https://mirror-03.infra.openwrt.org/releases/21.02-SNAPSHOT/packages/arm_xscale/routing
src/gz openwrt_telephony https://mirror-03.infra.openwrt.org/releases/21.02-SNAPSHOT/packages/arm_xscale/telephony

Are you still working on this software or not? Noticed that your Github at https://github.com/jdwl1o1/openwrt-len-ix2 hasn't been updated in 3 years.

Many thanks in advance

6

Hi, I no longer have this NAS and am not building new images for it.
All the parts are in the repository to create your own images if you would like.

7

Thank you for the fast reply. I will try to build new updated images and will post the links.

1 Like
8

@cghercoias

Have you managed to build a current build? Have you already been able to run a few benchmarks?

Slowly needing a replacement for the Xiaomi Mi Router 3G :slight_smile:

image
image1213×1185 73.2 KB

9

Hi, a Kirkwood powered NAS is unlikely to top the 40mb per second you are already achieving, though that depends on the protocol. For low overhead protocols (NFS) you can do better - but the same will be the case for your Mi Router.

The IX2 (and most Kirkwood NAS) are single core 1ghz ARMv5, your router is dual core MIPS and many years newer.

For a faster NAS look for something with an Marvell Armada cpu at least or anything Intel powered.

10

Hi
Were you able to build to the new version?
Could you please share?

Thank you

11

As it has been 3 months I'd suggest he didn't get around to it.

Everything needed to build images is in my github repo, you're welcome to clone it and update forward to v23.